It’s no secret that gratitude makes us happier, while materialism can do the opposite. And now, a new study shows that lower levels of gratitude could be part of the reason for why materialistic people have decreased life satisfaction, and that gratitude could actually mediate the relationship between materialism and life satisfaction.

“As we amass more and more possessions, we don’t get any happier — we simply raise our reference point,” study researcher James Roberts, Ph.D., of the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, said in a statement. “That new 2,500-square-foot house becomes the baseline for your desires for an even bigger house. It’s called the Treadmill of Consumption. We continue to purchase more and more stuff but we don’t get any closer to happiness, we simply speed up the treadmill.”